Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.

Chapter 22

Her flat mate had brought her friend over.

Flopping to the side with a dreary sigh, Meyrin tried to tell herself that it was fine, perfectly fine, that her colleague-cum-coworker's friend was noisy, hateful, inconsiderate, and generally male.

"Could you keep it down?" She called weakly. But they didn't hear her, and as if to make her headache worse, the noise level from outside, movie, crass jokes, sounds she didn't want to think too much about, grew more piercing, in effect aggravating her temples and inducing their throb to increase multifold.

Her blanket lay limply over her, and she tossed it to the side and turned to the wall periodically, putting her body near it to lose some heat. She hated fevers and the wretched flu, they made her cold, hot, queasy, and generally weak. And Meyrin did not want to be associated with that word, figuratively or literally, she was determined to be what she had worked to become, strong, independent, and as what her friend would tease her about, 'man-less.'

'Stupid arses,' she thought angrily, feeling more irritable than she would have normally. She was twenty-two, well, almost twenty-three, and she was still wondering what to do with her life. Of course there was the good ol' five-hell-day-work-week ZAFT, which she didn't quite mind, her employer Barty was bright, young and enjoyed a good joke after the work was nicely done, and he didn't take himself or her too seriously, and generally a genuinely nice person. He didn't even question why she'd quit being Athrun Zala's assistant six years ago.The work was fine and as enjoyable as it could get, the pay was good enough for her to live well and take a short holiday at the end of each year, the perks were nice, and she'd be travelling around the world as the ZAFT ambassador's assistant, something she actually liked.

And she congratulated herself for having some marginal benefit of leaving ETERNITY and Athrun Zala's employment, since being away from the all important headquarters and in a smaller division of ZAFT meant a proportionately and significantly smaller workload. And as long as she could do what she did best with computers and the lot, that was fine by Meyrin Hawke.

The wall was gaining too much of her heat, she had to save some of its granite coolness for later. So she pulled herself the other way and was bombarded with the noises that spilled and squilloed their way into her room. Bonita was pretty, she thought derisively, and smart too, quite a fair worker, never shirked, but oh, her taste in the opposite gender!

The actress in the movie they were supposed to be watching outside had a terrible laugh, it sounded like a chicken being sent to the slaughterhouse. In general, Meyrin would tolerate things like these, but not tonight. But oh- what other option did she have?

She stood woozily, and proceeded to nearly trip and fall flat to break her nose on her blanket. She did not curse, she was too prim and too sick for that.

Still clutching her bolster and in her admittedly childish pajamas, the worst of the lot with the snow bunny patter everywhere on her twenty-two year old body, she stumbled out into the dim lighting of the sitting room where her flat mate and her boyfriend were admittedly sitting but doing ZAFT-knows-what.

And Meyrin noticed that they failed to do likewise and said meekly because she didn't want to look intruding even though truth be told, she was doing that, obviously, and spoke up, "I was wondering if you could lower the volume of the stereo and your voices."

"Sorry," Bonita apologized charmingly, the brat she had for a boyfriend glanced at Meyrin, took in her disheveled face, weak eyes, and damn it all, bunny pyjamas that Lunamaria had squealed over but refused to wear, and turned back to Bonita saying dismissively, "Ah, she's just grumpy that she got no-one like you Bonie, we can make as much noise we want, she hasn't' anywhere to go anyway, kid that she is."

Mistake of the century. Bonita turned pale.

Shinn Asuka had told Meyrin once, that the danger word for Stellar Louissierwas 'die', but for her, it was 'kid'.

She jumped on the no good punk immediately. Oh she'd been itching for a fight, and if he was going to ask for a shelling, she'd give him one all the way.

"Bloody punk that you are," she said calmly, "Listen up. I'm twenty-three, and I happen to have a fetish for all things cute, cuddly and decidedly un-twenty-three, but that's none of your sodding business. At least I have the consideration for the person who bought it for me, while you have absolutely none for anyone. Don't fret darling," She said this with her best Humphrey Bogart smile, "I'm not here to question the nature of your upbringing, I'm only here to say good night and goodbye, and good luck with whatever you both were trying to do."

"But where are you going to go? For Pete's sake it's almost midnight!" Bonita protested, standing up and allowing her skirt to fall to the place where it should have been in the first place. Her boyfriend was too stunned to speak, Meyrin noted with some satisfaction, score one for her then.

"So you noticed then. I just need to go somewhere where I can get a goodnight's rest without being forced to interfere with midnight movies and some other kind of action film," Meyrin said dryly, but not unkindly to Bonita. The girl was too nice to be angry with, she decided, against the better judgment and uncomfortable throb of her temples.

She opened the door and moved out wearily, not slamming it, she was too tired for that sort of thing and she wasn't childish anyway, bunny pajamas or not.

Her sister had given those to her a long, long time ago, and how Meyrin had loved those. She'd bear-hugged her sister, even though the pajamas were humungous at that time for her and she'd worn only the shirt as a sort of minidress with shorts underneath. Now, the pajamas were about just nice, if not slightly tight. Lunamaria hadn't wanted those then and had given the rejected clothes to her, but Meyrin found out about that only later. Of course she had been slightly miffed, but those pajamas fit too snugly by then, ugly pattern or not.

Her feet brought her along the rows of bushes in the compound, and there were some stray cats holding conversations at the side. They fled when they saw her.

'Must be the pajamas', she thought with a misfire wryness.

And then she found herself strolling along, her bolster still in tow, to his block.

She knew it very well; she knew it like the back of her hand.

When the second war ended, she had stuck fiercely to Athrun, he never encouraged her, nor told her to go away, and that was good enough. She loved him, she did this unselfishly, thoroughly, unknowingly, unreciprocated, but she loved him, really, she did. And she had been over the moon to find out that she was given a chance to start afresh with her life, leave the unhappiness and awkwardness of the teen years behind her, be a grown-up, live the grown-up way, next to the flat he'd been granted until he decided he didn't want it anymore. As long as he did, she knew she'd want the apartment in the compound. The very same one, that she'd been granted.

Her feet were dragging across the sand lazily, tracing patterns here and there. She'd done that before, hadn't she, exactly the same way on the evening she had decided to leave Athrun and the aspect of the new life, or so she'd thought. She'd been thrilled to be put in the compound he was in, one coincidence, dumb luck, whatever anybody wanted to call it, she was happy with her lot. He never really took much notice of her, at least not in the way she wanted him to, but he didn't ask her to get lost, never treated her as obviously as a child the way her sister, Shinn, Rey, even sometimes Vino, of all people, treated her. And she loved him more than ever.

But all she'd been holding onto were half-fulfilled dreams, wistful longings of the heart, unspoken wishes, and a ring, sparkling and beautiful yes, but not hers, not even when its rightful owner had entrusted it to her, and never, for that matter.

Meyrin paused to look at the moon. It was crescent shaped, quit sharp and sickle, just like how it'd been before, on the evening she'd finished her letter and made arrangements to leave. She found out, through sheer miscommunication of certain documents in the office at a certain point in time after the Second War, that Lacus Clyne had arranged the refacilitation of those who had fought bravely for peace. She could have chosen to be clueless, but Meyrin knew Kira Yamato, handsome, calm, fair-tempered on a normal day, was the twin brother of Cagalli Yula Atha, and the connections were more than she could bear with their implications in the very place she was staying and the very things she was doing for her work.

The flat she did not sell, she rented it out to Bonita, because she supposed that fate might have wounded her back to it at one point or another, even though the job she had signed on for would take her all over the world as the young ZAFT ambassador's even younger assistant.

Cagalli was too kind, she thought morosely, squatting by the sandbox that children were supposed to be playing in. The landlady, kind, elderly and with a leaky memory forgot that the entire compound was mostly government or civil workers, the children had grown up and left or became those workers about ten years ago.

The air in the night was chilly by now, and she sneezed comically and made a face. Then her temples contracted and she really couldn't help but curse creatively.

She stood up, and stumbled forward, aching to get out of the cold, to stop being so stubborn and harsh on herself, to live and let live, and found her feet dragging her to the lift and up, and then there she was, Meyrin Hawke, a bedraggled mess of a girl, standing outside Athrun Zala's door, meekly ringing the bell and wondering why the hell she was doing this.

She rang it thrice, vaguely wondering if he'd even get up and yell at her to go away, and suddenly, the door was unlatched and flung open. A shaft of moonlight struck through the opening, illuminating their faces for each other, and she saw a bleary-eyed looking Athrun staring, astounded at her.

"Wha're you doing?" He asked sleepily, and she smelt the cool, sweet sting of alcohol on his breath and realized that his slightly mussed hair and slurred speech meant a little more than a man who was forced to wake up and an ungodly hour.

But it did not deter her. She fought through the haze her head was in and briefly explained to Athrun, who still had not opened the grill, as if she needed more discouragement than she already had from her considerable headache and fever that her roommate and her boyfriend were too noisy and she desperately needed a place with some silence to rest.

He stared at her, slightly more awake, and saw a petite girl with long red hair and a pretty but weary face, and it struck him that she needed help. It took him all of half a second to unlock the grill, and she stumbled in, still clutching the bolster rather pitifully, yawning and murmuring her heartfelt thanks and that she'd sleep on the sofa.

As he helped her in, the graze of their hands sent a jolt of thought that she was far too warm, and Athrun pulled himself near, so that their foreheads met, and she coloured terribly, still sane enough to know that she could have kissed him if she wanted to.

"You have a fever!" He said, quite shocked.

"I do," she explained miserably and quite deliriously even though she didn't detect it, "But it's fine, I'll sleep it off, I just need it to be quiet without those movies blasting."

She was aware that he was leading her to his couch, even though her eyes were nearly shut with fatigue and illness. The couch he made her lie on was wonderfully soft and large for her petite frame, and the cushions he stuffed and fluffed under her were squishy and very pillow-like, just what she needed.

Thank god his couch was the sort that felt like a bed, she remembered thinking happily.

It was a haze to her, but she was being roused form her light, unconscious doze, and felt him sitting next to her and asking her to swallow something, and some water being drained down her parched throat. She gulped thirstily and choked, quite inevitably, but he was patting her back, murmuring something she didn't understand but knew was soothing, and she soon settled.

And the night claimed her for its own, for she was a child again, curling up and snoozing in a bed that her sister would make for her in the morning. A hand was stroking away her long hair, pushing her head up on the cool surface of the cushion, and she smiled sleepily and grasped her sister's finger. A wet and very cold something was dripping on her forehead, her bangs were being forced up by a steady and cool hand. Lunamaria always knew what to do in these times. It seemed to her that Lunamaria was always the responsible, trustworthy one, even after their father had left them for another person and their mother was busy working to make ends meet and coming to their aunt's house only once every alternate weekends, and never knowing that Meyrin was being bullied in school, but no matter, her sister would always beat those boys up and make sure they wouldn't treat her like a helpless child even though she was in fact doing the same to Meyrin…

When the first knife of sunlight prodded and proceeded to stab her in the eyes, she noticed that she was not in a couch like she'd requested, but in a bed. His bed.

And she started up with a shout of dismay, promptly fell over the bolster he had put next to her, and tripped, stumbling like a pile of potatoes trying to walk, right and out into the living room.

Meyrin crept over; he was still sleeping on the couch. And it hit her, as subtly and as suddenly as a two-hundred ton brick wall, why she had lost her heart to someone like Athrun Zala. Schoolgirl crush, one-sided romance, delusional fantasies, whatever she knew it was, the gist was that she had loved Athrun Zala with every fiber existing in her.

Her fingers were reaching hesitantly, half lighted by the rays of sun that were creeping insidiously on his face, and she touched his cheek with her fingertips, half-afraid that he'd shatter, or more realistically, that he'd wake up and find her peering like a gibbon at him. It never occurred to Meyrin that she was twenty-two, beautiful, loved and lusted by and after for with everyone she met, and that the men at work were falling over themselves to get close to her. Because inside, she was Meyrin Hawke, the girl who had fought so hard to discover who she was and the girl who's carefully planted hopes and dreams had been crushed carelessly like those flowers that were never meant to grow.

She thought to herself, not realizing that her unassuming, unadulterated ways drew attention and deep feelings from many she did not even know well, that Athrun was very handsome. She'd seen plenty of those around, she thought quietly, Athrun, composed, responsible for himself and those around him, always slightly stiff but wonderfully Athrun, her employer, sunny and caring, energetic about his goals for work, Shinn in his reckless, uninhibited ways, the way he half-shouted each time he talked, Rey with his aristocratic, powerful aura and slight smile, Vino with his childlike charm and talkative ways, and her father, she'd been so tiny and so young when he'd left, but she always remembered his auburn hair and warm smile, so handsome and cruel he was.

Shaking away the fragments the way she might have pulled the tendrils of a plant away from the edge of a pot, Meyrin paused, gazing at the man she was kneeling next to, Athrun Zala was certainly missing Cagalli, she thought smilingly.

"Look at you," she whispered gently to a sleeping man, "Your job takes you here and you try to fool other and yourself that you don't miss her much. I hope it ends soon so you can return to her."

As if to reply, he suddenly stirred, and she froze and sat backwards, just in time for him to yawn slightly, crack open his sleep-encrusted eyes, and sit up slowly. A cushion bounced off his chest, and he noticed, quite abruptly, that Meyrin was present.

He looked so embarrassed that she was inclined to shake her head helplessly and laugh.

"You're awake," he said awkwardly, and she returned his cheer instead with a smiley, "I am."

Eager to not feel strange with his friend, he had come to terms and acceptance that she was much more than a mere acquaintance, but a true friend, he stood up, helped her up and said courteously, "You are feeling better, I hope?"

"I am," she said in wonder, realizing that the trance beat was switched off in her head and she had a clear consciousness that suddenly surprised her, and she laughed, never feeling more comfortable in her state of being. Her pajamas had been soaked with sweat in the night as she fought off the fever, and now, she felt inadequate, especially when he looked so fresh and unaffected by the night's unpleasant events and so alert.

But Athrun didn't seem to mind, he told her to take a shower after he noticed her discomfort, and pulled out a shirt or two and some pants for her to wear.

"Thanks, and I'm sorry to intrude," she said in a rush, her gratefulness genuine and fresh enough. He smiled, thinking that the men at work were probably engaging in battles everyday, but she was likely to be too unassuming to realize this. Athrun's perception was accurate, but neither of them understood nor realize the depth of this.

By the time she came out, he had arranged breakfast, eggs and that sort of thing, and feeling strangely at ease even in his oversized t-shirt and baggy pants that made her feel like a hobo, but a very well-looked after, clean, and loved hobo, she sat down and tucked in while he watched her silently while sipping a steaming cup of coffee. Bitter, she supposed, he refused to take sugar with it even when she had been his assistant.

"Your pajamas are interesting," he remarked pleasantly, his green eyes watching her over the top of the cup's rim. She snorted, her mouth twisted into a grin, and she clucked and said in retaliation, "Yours weren't as impressive."

He laughed a bit, this was true, he had been wearing only some old shorts and the blue ZAFT exercise shirt, by force of habit, and so he hadn't had any night clothes as- interesting as Meyrin Hawke's.

"Your flatmate's a girl?" He said, frowning a little. She nodded obediently, like a good child, and then he realized, she was one. He smiled to himself at that thought, but he did not express it however, he knew she would be displeased.

"Doesn't seem to consider much about you," he said emotionlessly, and she sighed and dabbed her lips with a napkin, replying hesitantly, "I like her, she knows how to work hard and have fun, just the taste in boyfriends is the only thing lacking other than the soundproof rooms I should have installed."

"Fine," he nodded humorously, "So that's how it is."

A few minutes of comfortable silence passed and she finally cleared her throat and told him that she would get back to her own flat. He looked a bit surprised, as if he had expected her to stay for the rest of the year, and she laughed at his muddle headedness, although inside, she was screaming at him to stop being so damn- what was the word?

Only one, she decided later, the word was Athrun-like.

She smiled to herself and reluctantly took a second bath in the evening as she always did. The scent, masculine but very comforting and somewhat sensual in a raw way, would be washed off, the scent she had accumulated from taking his clothes on her. But she would do it; a friend was someone who returned the clothes she'd borrowed on time.

Bonita noticed the scent of course, she had a nose for smelling out prize catches, or so she proudly said, and she was in awe of Meyrin.

"You've got a man hidden and stashed somewhere like a chest of honey in some old, cracked tree!" She said, delighted and somewhat relived to know that the rumors at work were false, rumours that Meyrin Hawke, charming, adorable, beautiful, intelligent, talented at her work and basically a domestic goddess but highly disinterested or oblivious to the attention of the males, was unrepentantly not straight.

"No," Meyrin said, horrified.

"Don't lie to me, young lady," Bonita crowed teasingly, "I smell the man smell, and heck, I'm not blind, those clothes are not yours, at least I can see that."

She proceeded to hum a tune to herself as Meyrin marched into the bathroom in the evening while Bonita prepared their dinner after a satisfying, long day of work.

"You're not a child anymore, Meyrin Hawke!" She congratulated Meyrin, once the girl had stepped out in fresh clothes for the night, the unknown man's clothes in the laundry basket, to be sent and washed at the laundry's the next day, "You're not a child anymore!"

"No," Meyrin said calmly, patting her damp, slight curling red hair with her towel, "I'm not.

She had loved so deeply and had been cut just as deeply, but she knew how to use scented soap to lather and wash away the scent of him that she wanted so much to keep, the essence she wanted to know more, to know better, to belong to, and she knew how to give up a man she thought she would never meet to a person she loved as well, for both their happiness' sake.

And to Meyrin, that was the mark of a grown-up.

Author's note:

To be prepared for the upcoming chapters, I'd like to get the reader's help on naming the twins. Perhaps a pair of names with the same starting alphabet'd be great. I'm personally stuck on naming, so do me the honours/favours!

Things to note:

Both the twins are male. I considered having one female but in Truth, I happened to mention both were male.

'The boys...' So oops.

And I'd love it if the origin/relevance of the name is put in. Just for my sake. )